71%

 
The glue binding your customers to you isn’t as strong as you think it is. 71% of B2B customers report being willing to switch suppliers whenever necessary. The key to eliminating strategic account defections is to become essential to your customers.

 

UP NEXT AT SAMA:

2024 SAMA Annual Conference

May 21-23, 2024
Fontainebleau Miami Beach Hotel

Celebrate SAMA's 60th in Miami! Learn more.

SAM Solution Center

Tools, resources and knowledge from experts in the SAMA community.

 

Knowledge & best-practice sharing
 

The SAMA community comprises the largest, most diverse community of strategic accounts practitioners in the world, and we mine them continuously for insights and emerging practices.
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Tools to benchmark your program or strategic account managers

Need real data to justify and/or guide investment in your strategic account management initiative? Our individual competency assessment and SAM program assessment will show how you compare to hundreds of other global B2B companies in our database.  Get started

TAILORED, COMPETENCY-DRIVEN TRAINING & CERTIFICATION

The best strategic and key account managers outperform average ones by a factor of 3X. We have trained thousands of SAMs, KAMs and GAMs to produce outsize growth and profitability by delivering differentiating value to their customers.  Learn more

Connections that matter
 

Whether you are looking for the what, the how or the who, SAMA can connect you with SAM practitioners who have overcome the exact challenge(s) you’re facing. It’s literally what we’re here for.
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You might like:

As we look forward to 2024, we’re focused on emerging trends that can deliver maximum impact to our SAMA community in the year ahead. Below we’ve highlighted several topics to keep on your radar, plus a couple resources that will sharpen your skill set and help your SAM program achieve excellence.
 

The Multichannel Approach

McKinsey & Company’s global B2B Pulse survey from earlier this year revealed that “companies that deliver on a great omnichannel experience backed by personalized marketing” are reaping rewards and “punishing those that don’t.” Viewed through the lens of strategic account management, the omnichannel approach holds many opportunities, as SAMA members have been actively pursuing how their SAMs can harness these principles to enhance customer experience. In their article, “The multiplier effect: How B2B winners grow,” McKinsey authors offer some helpful guideposts for the road ahead. Read the article.

 

Webinar — World Class SAM's: What to look for in candidates!

Today’s SAMs are more than salespeople — they are business leaders — and the required skill set for modern SAMs reflects that change. Customers expect SAMs to have a deeper understanding of their business, to provide insights and collaborate across the ecosystem, where soft skills like emotional intelligence are more in demand. But finding world class talent is more difficult than ever. Understanding abilities, skills, and needs has become more challenging as the next wave of recruits hit your radar. How can you assess the best candidate, and what will you need to do to coach, teach, or 'skill up' your SAMs for peak performance? The following webinar has the answers. Watch now.

 

Use GenAI to Uncover New Insights into Your Competitors

Generative AI is commonly presented as a tool for generating new content, but its effectiveness can extend equally, and sometimes even more effectively, to the reverse process: inputting content to extract information. A fascinating article in the Harvard Business Review details how this unconventional application of generative AI is now empowering leaders in marketing, strategy, and competitive intelligence to extract strategically relevant insights about their competitors from publicly accessible documents. In essence, generative AI serves as a vigilant observer, identifying valuable insights in the realm of competitive intelligence for SAMs. Read the article.

 

Medtronic's Innovative Approach to Value Co-creation

Winner of SAMA's 2023 Excellence Award for Innovative Value Co-creation, Medtronic demonstrates how their SAM program thinks outside the box to solve complex problems by engaging their company’s entire ecosystem in value co-creation. By applying novel, innovative mechanisms, Medtronic solved their customer’s problems, as well as their customer’s customer’s problems. Read the article.

SAMA 2024 Annual Conference:

Celebrate SAMA's 60th anniversary at our 2024 Annual Conference in Miami, FL May 21-23!

Join us at the legendary Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel to explore three parallel tracks, focusing on Critical Skills for Strategic Account Managers, SAM Program Design and Management, and SAM Talent Development — specifically designed to deliver maximum impact for you and your organization. With six decades of dedication to excellence, our conference continues to showcase best practices and unparalleled expertise, and we invite you to shape the future of strategic account management with us. Learn more or REGISTER NOW.

“SAMA provides us access to best practices, training and research in the areas of strategic account management from innovative selling organizations, including our own successful customers who are members as well. Corporate membership has proven to be an excellent investment in building and sustaining a world-class global sales force.”

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2024 Annual Conference:

 

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